Chapter 2 - Our Eyes Met

"Hey Maria," a voice softly greeted me as I took my seat in my homeroom. I turned my head to the seat beside me, where Kim Conweller sat quietly in her seat.

"Hi," I mumbled back as an awkward silence followed after.

In some ways, Kim Conweller and I were similiar and yet different. Our first obvious difference would be our ethnicity. While Kim was a fully Quileute girl with mocha-colored skin, long black hair, and brown eyes, I was a fully Caucasian girl with blonde hair - slightly bleached, but not in a Malibu barbie way - hospital-white skin, and chocolate brown eyes. Although we both had brown eyes, in general, the shade of brown was much more different. Kim's eyes seemed to have more depth and livelyness in them. Also, our personalities were one hundred eighty degrees different. Kim was the shy, quiet girl who sat in far end of the room away from the whole school population. On the other hand, I wasn't exactly shy though I tended to keep aloof from other student, and I definitely didn't welcome others with smiles like Kim did every morning. Kim was slighty the image of me before I had ever came in contact with Paul. She sort of lacked self-confidence, but she was sweet and innocent.

Perhaps that was the reason why even though Kim and I weren't friends, I still talked to her and answered her questions. If it were any other student at La Push High, I would have pretended not to hear them, like my biology partner, Embry Call.

"Alright class, morning announcements," Mr. Strong announced aloud the moment he stepped inside the classroom. He was a muscular man with mesmerizing hazel eyes and curly brown hair. Although he wasn't Quileute, he coached the La Push High football team along with basketball as well. According to some students at La Push High, he had been the heart-throb of La Push High before Paul Lahote moved up into the high school and before he had gotten married to a teacher at Forks High. I could somewhat understand why Mr. Strong was a heart-throb, I mean, who wouldn't have fantasies about secret rendez-vous with a handsome P.E teacher? But in my opinion, Mr. Strong was one of the nosiest teachers in La Push High. He made it his mission to involve students into high school activites, meaning that he had probably pestered me more than a million times about joining some stupid club. The last time we had a tete-a-tete conference - which I don't remember when - Mr. Strong had tried me to persuade me into a musicalclub. It's not that I had anything against musicals, but I'd rather die than sing some an elementary song like "Hot Cross Buns" in front of the entire Forks and Quileute population combined with some families from Port Angeles. Of course, I had politely refused to join the club, but due to my refusal, Mr. Strong had made it his new mission to find me a club to join.

"Uh... lunch today is meatloaf with gravy."

"Eww... seriously? I am totally going to drive down to Subway," an obnoxious voice squwaked. I rolled my eyes as Natasha Green scrunched her nose in disgust. It wasn't like I wouldn't agree with her - the cafeteria meal, especially meatloaf, was just a disgusting lump of unknown brown stubstance - but hearing her voice was just unbearable. I was bias on disliking her voice. I probably wouldn't be rolling my eyes at her over-dramatic complaints - or maybe I would - if she hadn't been a back-stabbing bitch. A year ago, she had been one of the faux friends I had and the "new" girl who made out with Paul when he dumped me. But I was over that now. I just happened to have a dislike to her appearance, her personality, her voice, and I guess everything about her. Still, I wasn't a typical "I'll get my revenge on you someday" girl. I chose to ignore her like the rest of the people at La Push High.

"Hey, did you like hear like Paul's back today," Natasha's friend giggled.

"Yeah! And OMG, did you like see his six-packs? His muscles? I can't like wait to like feel it," Natasha squealed aloud. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing as Mr. Strong stopped reading the announcement paper and raised an eyebrow at Natasha.

Sometimes, I wondered if Natasha and her "friends" knew how to whisper. They had always been too vocal and boisterous for teachers to miss.

"Miss Green, would you like to share anything," Mr. Strong asked eagerly, like the nosy teacher he is.

"Uh... no. I mean, no thanks," Natasha grimanced. As much as Natasha enjoyed being Miss Queen of the World, she was quite strange that she hated being the center of attention in front of teachers.

"Oh okay... we proceeding on..."

"So like... do you know who gave him mono," Natasha's friend continued as if Natasha wasn't caught exclaiming and fan-girling about Paul's newly aquired "hot" body.

"Well... I think it's from that nerd in Forks," Natasha scrunched her face in disgust.

"Eww... I know... like what is up with him and his obsession with going out with like white chicks? Are they like that gullible? I mean like remember that girl that came in here like last year? She was like so gulliable! I mean I can't believe she actually like believed him when he told her "I love you"! Like every guy says that! And she like didn't even get that we were only being friends with her 'cuz like Paul was like there," Natasha's friend stated as she flipped her hand up and down while she examined her neon colored nail art.

I ran a hand through my blond hair, almost wishing that Natasha and her crony would shut-up or I could somehow mute their conversation. But of course, that wasn't the case, and so I had suffered twenty minutes - more like an enternety- hearing

Natasha and her friend "whispering" about the latest gossip in La Push. But most of their gossip had been about Paul, which made me tap my feet impatiently by the end of the twenty minutes, hoping to escape the room.

"Okay, well... that's it for homeroom. I guess proceed to class then," Mr. Strong finished as he placed the announcement sheet on his desk. Every student in the room jumped up as the bell for the end of homeroom rang. Perhaps it wasn't just me who had been suffering through Natasha and her sidekick's gossip fest.

Sighing with relief, I gathered my things, only to be stopped with, "Maria, can I talk to you... regarding your involvement with school activities." I internally groaned.

"Nice of you to join our class, Miss Forrest," Ms. Birch - or more like Bitch - stated crossly as she glared at me through her rectangular spectacles.

"Here," I grumbled as I slapped down a flimsy neon green pass with red bold letters: UNEXCUSED. It wasn't my fault that Mr. Strong had decided to keep me in homeroom thritry more mintues to discuss about joining Tutoring Club. How he got the idea was beyond me since the only A I seemed to keep and have was from Algebra and the rest of my subject scores ranged from a high B to a C-. Nonetheless, Mr. Strong decided to discuss the benefits of tutoring a student and preforming good deeds ih high school for college. It's not that I didn't care about writing out a perfect college resume, but I knew myself well. Could I teach a student without becoming vexed or impatient? The answer was an absolute "No" - to which Mr. Strong had furrowed his eyebrows.

What a wonderful day today seemed to be. Things just kept getting worse by the minute as I was forced to sit next to Miss Whiney Pants Natasha, who had at the time been busy eye-fucking Jared Cameron: the best friend of Paul Lahote. Jared, too, had came back today from catching mono. It was slightly weird how Jared Cameron had always remained a mystery. He wasn't a player like his best friend nor was he a shy boy. When I had been "going out" with Paul Lahote, believe it or not, Jared and I had conversed occasionally. Who would have thought that he was also taking part in Paul's stupid games.

"Oh... it's you," Natasha squawked obnoxiously as she scrunched her face in disgust. The girl was an actress. At first sight, you wouldn't have believed that she would be a two-faced, back-stabbing bitch. She was the La Push version of Mean Girls combined with Sharpay from High School Musical. Natasha's father happened to own some sort of buisness which made her rich - not rich as in Bill Gates rich, but wealthy enough to purchase designer brands.

I continued to stay mute in my seat, pretending to jot down some notes on the board written in Ms. Birch's chicken-scratch. I swear, Ms. Birch was probably aiming to be a pharmacist or a doctor before switching majors to teaching high school students the English grammar.

"You know," Natasha continued on as if I hadn't ignored her, "Paul came back like today. Too bad he like dumped you in front of everybody. If you haven't heard the rumors already, he's like become even more hot."

Natasha flashed her Hollywood actress smirk, but I disregarded her immature actions and continued on with writing notes. Whether Paul Lahote became hotter or not had nothing to do with me. Besides, even if he became "drop-dead gorgeous", I would never date him again even if he were to be the last man left on Earth. Just because a jerk's looks changed for the better didn't mean that I would beg on my knees to touch him or date him.

"You know... Paul like sometimes talks about you," Natasha mentioned. I refused to give her any sort of reaction by her words, but my fist was aching to punch her soon.

"Maria, ignore her. Don't let her get to you," I chanted inside my head.

"He says like you were a good lay. But he wished like that you would have bigger boobs," Natasha snorted. I wonder what she found funny because I knew that my bossoms were real and a C cup. They were definitely not small unless you compared them to the ones from porn stars.

"Oh... but maybe if you bowed down to him and like apologized for calling him a jackass, he might sleep with you again," Natasha advised, not that I would heed it. Why did I have to apologize for merely stating out the fact? He was a jackass who played girls' hearts to attain their innocence. I honestly couldn't care less about whether Paul was interested in "laying" me again. There was no way in hell that I would ever want to be in a room alone with him again.

"No thanks," I finally answered as Natasha continued to bore a hole with her eyes at the side of my head.

"Why?"

"Not interested. There's plenty of fish in the sea," I sighed, not really wanting to talk more than a few words to her.

"Huh," she questioned with an eyebrow raised. Go figure. She probably didn't know that figure of speech, but I didn't really feel like elaborating so I tuned her out.

"You know... I feel like sorry for you," she commented as she stared at me with pity.

"Why," I asked as the bell rang.

"Paul goes for more classier girls. You were just the new girl that he wanted to try."

"Hmm," I grunted as the bell rang for the end of the period. It was coming back again: the heavy, glum feeling which I had hidden a year ago. Quickly, I collected my things and walked out of the room. Only instead of the hallway, I bumped into an abnormally warm chest.

Our eyes met.

Hi! Chapter 2 is up! :D

I'm putting down a playlist for any songs I listened to that inspired me to write each chapter I post.

If you know calm or inspiring music (can be soundtrack music), let me know what songs you would suggest!

Also, if it's not too troublesome, please write a comment/ review! I'd love to hear what my readers think! :)

Love CecileJ

Playlist: If You Don't Mean It by Dean Geyer
That Girl by David Choi
One Time by SafetySuit